government in

Canada

the Crown, the Senate, and the House of Commons of Canada, which, according to the British North America Act (Constitution Act) of 1867, are the institutions that together create Canadian laws. When Parliament is referred to in some formal usages, all three institutions are included. In common...

India

...degree of interdependence. The executive branch consists of the president, vice president, and a Council of Ministers, led by the prime minister. Within the legislative branch are the two houses of
parliament—the lower house, or Lok Sabha (House of the People), and the upper house, or Rajya Sabha (Council of States). The president of India is also considered part of
parliament. At the...

Italy

Parliament is bicameral and comprises the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. All members of the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house) are popularly elected via a system of proportional representation, which serves to benefit minor parties. Most members of the Senate (the higher chamber) are elected in the same manner, but the Senate also includes several members appointed by the president and...

Morocco

...monarchy with two legislative houses. According to the constitution promulgated in 2011, political power in Morocco is to be shared between the hereditary monarch and an elected bicameral
parliament, consisting of the House of Councillors (Majlis al-Mustashārīn; upper chamber) and the House of Representatives (Majlis al-Nawāb; lower chamber). A prime minister heads...

South Africa

...emphasizes the distinctiveness, interdependence, and interrelationship of the national, provincial, and local spheres of government. The constitution established the bicameral national Parliament. The lower house, or National Assembly, comprises 350 to 400 members who are directly elected to a five-year term through proportional representation. The National Council of Provinces,...

Spain

...was to give consent to the levy of extraordinary taxes necessitated by the king’s ever-increasing financial obligations as royal activities and responsibilities steadily expanded. The growth of
parliamentary institutions was a common European phenomenon, though it is noteworthy that it occurred at such an early date in the peninsular kingdoms.

Sudan, The

...Sudan and the responsibilities of political power and authority ultimately led him to disown his own campaign promises and to declare Sudan an independent republic with an elected representative
parliament on January 1, 1956.

United Kingdom

the original legislative assembly of England, Scotland, or Ireland and successively of Great Britain and the United Kingdom; legislatures in some countries that were once British colonies are also known as
parliaments.

Victoria

Victoria’s basic government structure—established as an act of British Parliament in the state’s constitution of 1855 and reaffirmed with declaration of the constitution as an act of the Parliament of Victoria in 1975—consists of separate legislative, judicial, and executive branches. The state’s Parliament comprises two houses: the Legislative Assembly (lower) and the Legislative...

major references

The executive is organized very differently in a
parliamentary system. In the United Kingdom, whose Westminster system has been adopted in many countries, the executive branch is not entirely separate from the legislative branch. On the contrary, the British cabinet may be described as the leading committee of Parliament. Formerly, the British prime minister, the head of the government, could...

...of constitutional democracy; Britain, although its system is sometimes referred to as a cabinet system in recognition of the role of the cabinet in the government, is the classic example of the
parliamentary system. The U.S. presidential system is based on the doctrine of separation of powers and distinguishes sharply between the personnel of the legislature and the executive; the British...

...individual has come into conflict with society by violating its norms or in which individuals have come into conflict with one another, and it employs formal procedures that contrast with those of
parliamentary or administrative bodies.

role in

age of European monarchy

The experience of England, where Parliament played a vital part in the Reformation proceedings of Henry VIII’s reign and thus gained in authority, shows that power could be shared between princes and representative bodies. On the Continent it was generally a different story. The Estates-General had been discredited because it had come to be seen as the instrument of faction. Religious...

forms of government

In England the rise of Parliament introduced a republican, if not a democratic, element into the workings of one of Europe’s oldest kingdoms. The tradition of representative estates was first exploited by the Renaissance monarchy of Henry VIII and his children, the Tudors, and then unsuccessfully challenged by their successors, the Stuarts. The English Civil Wars (1642–51) remade all...

parliamentary democracy

democratic form of government in which the party (or a coalition of parties) with the greatest representation in the
parliament (legislature) forms the government, its leader becoming prime minister or chancellor. Executive functions are exercised by members of the
parliament appointed by the prime minister to the cabinet. The parties in the minority serve in opposition to the majority and have...

sovereignty

...Austin (1790–1859) developed the concept further by investigating who exercises sovereignty in the name of the people or of the state; he concluded that sovereignty is vested in a nation’s
parliament. A
parliament, he argued, is a supreme organ that enacts laws binding upon everybody else but that is not itself bound by the laws and could change these laws at will. This description,...

role of

cabinet

In continental Europe the cabinet, or council of ministers, similarly became an intrinsic part of
parliamentary systems of government, though with some differences from the British system. Modern cabinets first appeared in Europe during the 19th century with the gradual spread of constitutional government. Monarchs had previously used members of their court circles to carry out various...

president

In contrast to the Americas, most western European nations have
parliamentary systems of government in which executive authority is vested in cabinets responsible to
parliaments. The cabinet’s head, and the leader of the majority in
parliament, is the prime minister, who is the actual chief executive officer of the nation. In most of these governments the president serves as a titular, or...

prime minister

the head of government in a country with a
parliamentary or semipresidential political system. In such systems, the prime minister—literally the “first,” or most important, minister—must be able to command a continuous majority in the legislature (usually the lower house in a bicameral system) to remain in office.

use of checks and balances

Checks and balances, which modify the separation of powers, may operate under
parliamentary systems through exercise of a
parliament’s prerogative to adopt a no-confidence vote in a government; the government, or cabinet, in turn, ordinarily may dissolve the
parliament. The British Parliament is supreme, and laws passed by it are not subject to review by the courts for constitutionality. In...